


In the Corner of the Night, no One Writes Poems for the Lost

by Puniyo



Series: Code: Red Rain [4]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dystopian World, Knives, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Philosophical Issues, Psychological Drama, Psychological Manipulation, Sci-Fi, Sexual Situations, a dose of fluff too, alternative universe, crude language, heavy on dialogue, no gloomy endings, play on metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-09-29 22:33:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17212082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Puniyo/pseuds/Puniyo
Summary: Part I‘Am I–?’‘Immortal? Who knows Javier?’‘Then,’ he turns to Yuzuru as the grip on his hand is even stronger, ‘are we the same?’‘No.’ The older man shakes his head, looking at the floor. ‘Yuzuru never existed.’Part II‘Aren’t you, Yuzuru, alive? Like me?’‘Are we?’Javier leans forward and he brushes their lips together, tiny tremors with pulsating anticipation. He pours more pressure on the fleshy plumpness and the young man imitates him, opening his mouth further, until the tip of their tongues meet and they drink of each other’s saliva, of bitter lemon and sweet vanilla.The last installment for the Code seriesUPDATED AND COMPLETED [04-01-2019]





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Dear readers, Code is finally on its last installment, divided into two parts so I can manage my own head. This started as a prison sort of AU but it has by now developed into a dystopian world. I had these ideas more than a decade ago so pardon my wicked brain.
> 
> Note: In no way the things written in this fic reflect what I think of the world. I do think we are not the best beings out there but I still have faith in humanity. Ideas for sake of the plot.
> 
> Disclaimer: this is a work of FICTION! F-I-C-T-I-O-N! In no ways it reflects the people mentioned. 
> 
> P.S - Pardon me for the scientific/medical jargon. Google does wonders.

The cacophony of titanium scalpels on silver forceps continues endlessly as the eyes of the computer watch the lumps of mass being cut and collated to other patches of skin, acquiring proper shapes and fitting into the limbless open torso. Sweat drips from the blue-masked surgeons’ foreheads as they weigh a darker agglomeration resembling a liver while red-ones trim the excessive tissue on a pair of almost symmetrical lungs. Ribs are serrated to fit the puzzle to measure and the floor under their silicon feet is a lake of crimson, dripping from the working table. The whole air reeks of undiluted industrial alcohol that one of the apprentices almost vomits as he inhales a second too long.

‘Get rid of him.’

‘No, please!’

The young boy, completely covered from head to toes in aseptic scrubs, is shot down as he runs for the main computer. No one dares to move to clean the cadaver, the smell of death actually comforting them. They keep assembling the body like automated vessels, stitching the legs to the hips, fingers to a palm, hand to a wrist.

‘Make him good. Make him great. Make him the best there is.’

Years are hours and hours are seconds in the glassed cell where he takes shape. Make him human, two feet, slender waist, elbows on ivory skin, eyes that matched with the darkness of the hair, delicate features on one that was neither alive nor dead.

‘Hurry. The Code is waiting. Let my child wake up.’

 

 

‘No, I am–‘

‘Yuzuru?’

‘I am… the Code.’

Javier watches Yuzuru take slow steps, closer and closer to the cracked screens in front of them. There is only noise in them, running dots of grey and black that follow an erratic pattern from one monitor to another. The younger man turns around, his eyes staring at nothing, at the emptiness between their bodies.

‘I am… coming home.’ He extends his arm, the same lack of emotion on his face as he contracts and extends his fingers. ‘Take me home.’

‘No!’ Javier lunges in his direction, grabbing the defenseless hand, their palms fused at the contact.

The screens fill immediately with footage of the Spaniard, sepia negatives of when he was a dozen of nuclei on a womb, he a toddler climbing a crib and diving to the carpeted floor, he on roller blades as he escapes from the school principal after ripping apart the detention sheet, he and Patrick sharing a bottle of beer in the upper deck of the bunk in their cell, he and Yuzuru kissing fervently in the rain. The glass on the monitors burst too abruptly and the shards fly towards them. Javier instinctively pulls the dark-haired man behind him and he shuts his eyes too tightly, bracing the explosion of the sharp tips.

The room is completely white just like cell 223 when he opens his eyes again, the excessive brightness making him lose balance and he falls to the ground. He is unharmed except for the bruise on his buttocks and the sting of the tears on his corneas.

_Yuzuru._

He looks around, searching for the younger man but Yuzuru has not let go of his hand. The grip is strong, almost depriving the flow of blood to the extremities. They are both extended on the sterile floor, side by side, and Javier brings their joined hands to his chest, confirming the beating of his heart.

‘Yuzuru?’

The other man shifts slightly but he doesn’t reply, only a whimper as he tries to lift his thumb on top of the Spaniard’s sternum.

‘Yuzuru?’ Javier sits promptly, the vertebras jolting his spine like needles stabbing into every of their junction and he throws up a trail of saliva as the pain subsides. He coughs a few more times, only roughly expelled air and scraps of his throat. Yuzuru’s fingers slide down to his wrist, the touch much weaker and sluggish.

‘Mhmm.’

‘Yuzuru?’

‘Javier.’

‘Are you hurt?’ No response. ‘Can you hear me?’ The longer strands of the fringe fall onto his obsidian eyes, barely open. ‘Talk to me!’

‘Javier? I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t apologize.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t fall asleep!’

‘Beautiful.’

‘What?’

‘Your…’

Yuzuru’s head on his lap is heavy and he doesn’t know if he can lift him. The corners of his mouth curve into a subtle smile as he tries to point to his own neck.

‘… voice.’

‘Then listen to it! Listen to me. You like it when I call you, don’t you?’

Javier grabs Yuzuru’s jaws, pressing firmly until he feels the shape of the molar teeth. He nods, wincing at the brutish gesture.

‘… hurts.’

The fog in his irises is the last color Javier sees when the young man’s eyelids close, the silent sorry etched on his lips. His body is no longer stout and treading on his knees, but light, so light as a limp feather plucked from a new born swan.

‘Yuzuru?’

Javier shakes the frail shoulders, over and over, as he hugs him even tighter to his own chest. He can’t even hear the suave drawing of breath from his parted lips that always held him captive in its seductive whisper. He raises one of the Yuzuru’s hands and he glares at the paleness in the palm crossed by the different lines. A frenzied shiver shots up his brain and he almost bites his tongue as he bends the middle digit backwards.

Javier inhales deeply as he mentally counts. Pain is the greatest stimulant. Pain will keep Yuzuru awake, he thinks. Break his finger, break his arm, break a rib if necessary. The adrenaline almost spills from his pores and he licks his dry lips.

_Break him._

‘Don’t do it!’

Javier releases his grip on Yuzuru, the middle finger of the young man already curved in a weird angle. The veins in his forehead hammer him in a percussion swing, almost ripping apart his ears. Sweat runs down his collarbones, burning him like painting his muscles with lit cigarettes.

The room has changed again, concrete walls of grey, mildew on corners and torn plaster over cement blocks. It is humid, drops of yellow from the ceiling. Yuzuru’s silver mask lies next to his feet, two large hollows for the eyes that resembled a ghost cursing him.

‘Don’t wake him up.’

A hand holds his shoulder and Javier turns to its direction instinctively. Broken nails but polished in velvet blue. He recognizes the blank watch without any pointer for the hours and the blond hair over that tiny scar on the bridge of her nose.

‘Tracy?’

‘Yuzuru is in the Code. If you force him to come back, he will die.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘Get a grip of yourself, Javier! We have to leave before we are caught.’

Javier pulls the young man closer to him amidst his confusion. He tries to stand up but his legs fail him and he almost sprains his ankle in the way he sits on it.

‘ _Javier_ ,’ the newly arrived woman cups his face, massaging his cheeks tenderly as she smiles, ‘we have to go.’

‘Why–‘

‘It is not time for questions now.’ She lifts Yuzuru to his feet, holding to his waist, dragging him by his lifeless silhouette. ‘Do you want to save him?’

The Spaniard only nods.

 

 

‘The Awakening has started.’

The words resonate through the conference room. The multitude of shutter clicks and flashes are almost blinding and Yuzuru diverts his gaze. These continue for minutes like pestilent fused lights on the operation theater. The Master squeezes his hand under the table but he refuses to look at the reporters.

‘But why has it chosen this city?’

‘The Wastelands are in quarantine already.’

‘Tell us when we should evacuate.’

‘Are we all going to die?’

Yuzuru rises abruptly, sending his chair backwards and hitting the floor. The glass of water turns over and spills to the electric cord of the microphone and the sudden screech is deafening loud. He breathes in the unspoken dread hanging in the room and the famine eyes focused on him.

The Master restrains the movement of his fingers again, in a menacing, silent threat and he recoils with his head down.

‘We shouldn’t ask the reasons and the whims of this planet on us. This plague that has fallen on humanity, this venom that eat you from inside out, that gauges your eyes in your sleep and curds your blood when you fuck like animals,’ the authoritative voice echoes even without the amplifier, ‘ _THIS_ , my fellow companions, is a blessing.’

The room arouses in a commotion of indignant expletives and capital curses. Yuzuru only shakes his head as the cries are more raucous and the tip of the pens hit the surface of the aluminum tables.

‘A blessing? You’re not the one dying!’

‘Piece of shit!’

‘Are we all going to die?’

‘We don’t need your lies!’

‘Can we survive this?’

‘YES!’ The Master hits the table with such a force that it cracks under his blow, his eyes bloodshot and brimming with mocking superiority over the journalists. ‘We are the chosen ones who will live and eradicate this world of the existent filth! We are the chosen ones!’

 

 

‘There is no plague.’

‘Of course there is, my Yuzuru.’

‘The Code is what is making people sick.’

‘They call it a plague. We call it evolution.’

‘It is too cruel!’

‘Who taught you about cruelty?’

Yuzuru is quiet, swallowing Javier’s name as it forms on his vocal chords.

‘No one.’

‘Am I cruel, my boy? Am I?’

He shivers as the voice directly pierces his neurons, talking as his own thoughts.

‘Everything dies in this world, my child. The flower that withers in the snow and the seeds that are washed away on the floods without even sprouting. The lamb that suffocates in the mother’s womb without even tasting the sun. The stars that explode at their brightest hour to return no nothing. Who is the cruel one here?’

He shakes his head, his nails digging into his palm until it starts bleeding.

‘TELL ME!’

‘No one.’ Tears gather in his eyelids. ‘No… one.’

‘We are giving people what they want the most. Do you know what that is, my boy?’

‘No.’

‘The chance to be immortal. The chance to be alive for eternity even when their bodies rot like the parasites they are. A Code that separates their minds from their mortal vessels. Am I still cruel, Yuzuru?’

‘No.’

‘But humans break too easily. If they can’t accept the Code, they are just _failures_.’

 

 

Javier sits by the edge of his own bed, his elbows pressing down on the arms of the cut leather chair, hands between his thighs, seeking a little of the warmth that still existed in him. Yuzuru has the most serene face even when his chest barely moves and the memory foam molds to his ghostly, svelte frame. A prince waiting for the kiss of true love to awake from the poisoned slumber.

What a stupid fairytale, Javier thinks, narrated to children so they would fall asleep – the irony of it. And yet, he keeps staring at the young man’s mouth, at the roundness of his thin lips, pale but still touches of rose blossom. He reaches for them as he climbs to the mattress but he hesitates just before the final inches are severed.

_You are a failure._

‘He will never be infected.’

Tracy knocks at the open door. She leans slightly into the room as if asking for permission to enter and he just nods, jumping to his feet, almost bumping his shin to the wooden stand next to the bed.

‘I told you not to wake him up.’ She fixes the covers around Yuzuru like a mother does in the early hours of the dawn, and she checks his pulse, shaking her head as she finds a feeble one, doomed to be extinguished soon. ‘He hasn’t left the Code.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I was there with you and him.’ Her words are laced with compassion but they fail to reach Javier.

‘I thought you were dead.’

‘It was the only way I could have been accepted to their laboratories.’

‘I thought I had betrayed you and Brian.’

The blonde woman takes a deep breath, wrinkles on the corners of her eyes and creases on the bridge of her nose. ‘Javi–‘

‘I spent months _there_!’ – His fists crashes against the wall of the room, dry paint falling like powdered snow on his bruised knuckles. ‘You knew about this and you still let them…’ He shuts his eyes at the slightest memory of the savage agony under the fluorescent lights. He wonders if Yuzuru lying in bed now is experiencing the same as he did back then.

‘I won’t apologize.’

‘I don’t need your apologies.’ He almost wants to yell at her to not touch Yuzuru again. ‘Was all this time worth it?’

‘It had to be done.’ Remorse diffuses in the air, just like the attenuated scent of penitence.

It is suffocating the Spaniard.

‘Is my guilt worth it?’

The first few raindrops tap against the glass panes of the closed window. It escalates hastily into a full arbitrary aria of bizarre splashes subdued by the roar of robust gusts.

‘ _Yes_.’

Javier leaves the room without looking back, his feet dragging him out of the house, into the overcast horizon. The rain, sweet as it nests on his tongue and he drinks of it, drowns all it glazes, soaking the hazelnut curls, the collared shirt that clung to his pectorals, his underwear in a wet discomfort for his sex. He opens his arms waiting to be crucified by the lightning that doesn’t strike him and he shouts as loud as the thunder that follows.

_You are a failure._

Effie too joins him in the sodden grass and pools of mud. She seems weaker, her belly less swollen than before but her gait lethargic and listless. He crouches to meet the calico cat, noticing the dead kitten carried in her mouth. As Javier tries to take the offspring, Effie scratches him, her sharp claws perforating his skin.

‘Even you Effie, don’t you trust me anymore?’

The cat drops the only kitten that didn’t survive from her litter and she purrs, nudging closer to his owner’s ankle. Javier sits on the inundated earth, hugging her to his chest, both of them crying for condolences on the departed child. The tumid soil is soft like pastel and they both dig a small hole, the size of the Spaniard’s palm, enough to accommodate the body of the lost kitten.

A multitude of voices ravages Javier’s mind when he lifts the animal, the minuscule ball of fur slipping through his paralyzed hands.

_This world is filthy._

_Please don’t hurt him._

Each new voice entrenches into the folds of his brain, penetrating deep into the grooves. He clutches his head in pain as he fights to not let the foreign cognition overtake him.

_We will all die._

_Immortality, my child!_

_Kill! They don’t deserve to live._

_I never tasted strawberries._

_He doesn’t need love._

_It’s the voice._

_Make love to me._

_It’s so beautiful._

_My name?_

_Javier._

It’s Yuzuru.

_Javier. Javier._

It’s Yuzuru calling for him.

_Javier._

He closes his eyes, lullabied by the honeyed thrills of the young man’s voice.

 

 

It is a room completely in white again, barren and infertile, impossible for any life to propagate and survive. It is not cell 223, not the horror-stricken walls nor the stench of the disinfectant tiles. Javier is floating, he thinks, levitating in the air. He can’t feel his body, not a single fiber of his muscles contracting or distending in the cage of his epithelial tissue. He can’t even see himself, just his own consciousness ramified in every corner of that room. Below him, a young boy sleeps in fetal position, knees drawn to his chest, long strands of black hair covering his eyes.

It is Yuzuru.

A single monitor lights from a television set next to him and noise runs on the screen.

‘My child. Sleep, my child. Oh! You are perfection, my child. All I ever dreamed to be. All the best life has to give. You, my child, water that will never dry and fire that will never quench, you are my finest creation.’

Yuzuru recoils further into himself as the light of the screen engulfs him. He is muttering something, his lips quirking into different shapes, but Javier hears nothing, only the voice muffled by the mechanized telephone beats.

‘Wake up Yuzuru!’

He contorts to the sides, his shoulders trying to shake off the nightmare that crawls under his belly up to his neck, strangling him, down to his manhood, fastening it to his growing suffering.

‘Don’t listen to it, Yuzuru!’

‘Sleep, my child. I love you more than anything. Sleep so I can be you and you can be me one day. Very soon, my child.’

‘It’s me! Javier! Wake up!’

‘What?’

The television is turned off and the young boy relaxes in the renewed quietude and in the solace of the Spaniard’s name.

‘How did you get in?’

There is no else in the room and yet he can feel more than a presence there.

‘Get out! I won’t let a _failure_ tarnish my child.’

‘Wake up, Yuzu–‘

‘GET OUT!’

 

 

Javier chokes as the rainwater gather on his open mouth and the drops turn bitter, refusing to be ingested. Effie is in her guard, her tail extended and spiked in defense, as he falls to his elbows, expelling the very last droplets of panic.

Panic and fear. Fear and dread. A chill runs to his toes, freezing them, while his consciousness is anchored back to his bones.

Yuzuru is trapped inside.

_Get out!_

He stumbles on the stairs to his room, the steps jabbing into his knees, but he keeps moving, crawling until he reached the door. He chuckles at the absurdity of his weak shell, an outdated piece of hardware, of unbolted joints and loose ligaments. Perhaps he was really a _failure_ , waiting for the fat and grease to coat his liver and the virus to chomp away all his nails and fingers piece by piece.

_Javier._

Yuzuru is in the same position as when he left him there, the same sedated but peaceful expression on his chiseled profile. The Spaniard sits at the edge of the mattress, his wet clothes dripping on the sheets. He grabs Yuzuru’s hand and brings it to his chest, right on top of his heart.

‘Can you feel this?’ His breath is ragged, his pulse hectic. ‘It’s time you wake up, Yuzuru.’ He grips the comatose palm even harder, his anger distilled into madness. ‘You selfish fucker.’

‘Don’t wake him, Javier.’

‘Why not?!’ He turns around, greeted by the sight of Brian with a crutch and an arm around Tracy for support. ‘ _They_ were here.’

‘This?’ The older man points to the bandaged thigh, close to the pelvis. ‘I tripped on Effie’s kittens.’

‘Once a bad liar, forever a lousy liar.’ Javier stands up to help him but Brian shakes his head. He is still holding Yuzuru’s hand, not willing to let it go.

‘Don’t bother. You might be my son but I’m still nimbler than you.’ He leans on the wall, sighing at the relief from the acute ache on his lower limb. The manila folder tucked under his arm almost slides to the floor.

‘I have to wake him up. He is trapped somewhere. I can hear Yuzuru calling me.’

‘You can finally hear him. Only you, Javier. Only you have this ability.’

There is a sudden twitch on Yuzuru’s fingers, an uncoordinated jerk that presses on the Spaniard’s wrist.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You two are connected by the Code.’

Brian throws the envelope to the bed, a dozen of _confidential_ and _maximum_ security files falling out of the untied opening. They all have the capitals RED RAIN and Javier’s full name in the upper corner in large, bold letters.

‘You are the perfect specimen.’

 

 

‘I will stop the Code.’

‘Don’t be silly, my child.’

‘The Code is killing people. We are killing people!’

‘Do you think you know how to stop the Code?’

‘Master, they are innocent!’

‘Who taught you about innocence?’

‘I did! They did!’

‘Is it innocent when they drill nature to plunder the graves of the lives of all our ancestors? They call it oil but it’s the essence of those who were once in your feet!’

‘What they take, they give back.’

‘Give back? What do they return? A rifle for a machine gun, an aircraft carrier for a submarine, an orphan child for a slave. They sign peace treaties in the morning, stab their leaders at noon and cook their intestines by midnight.’

‘People can change.’

‘What people fear the most is change.’

‘Why don’t you go see the beauty that is out there?’

‘I see beauty, my Yuzuru. I see beauty in every violation, every knot in their necks, every roof they burn, in every single time they say _I’m innocent_ while blood drips from their hands like a broken tap. You have tried their beauty, the blindfolds and the rubber fingers. Beautiful, wasn’t it?’

‘The Code is not the solution.’

‘It is, my child. Everything will be perfect when they don’t exist anymore.’

‘Not everyone is a criminal.’

‘But diseased minds spread like leprosy. They contaminate everything they touch and see, smell and taste. Once they are heard, they can’t be forgotten. They must adapt to evolution, the grandeur of the ultimate finality – extinction.’

‘Aren’t you the same as them?’

‘You hurt me, my child. Who has corrupted you, my joy of this world?’

‘No one.’

‘Is it that _failure_?’

‘Javi is no failure.’

‘A _failure_ with a name! Entertain me, my child. What has that brute done to you, my sweet love?’

‘Javi is kind.’

‘So am I.’

‘He cares about me.’

‘So do I.’

‘Javi, he… he brings me cake with strawberries and Chantilly cream that melts on the mouth… he doesn’t hide from me… he–‘

‘What else, my child?’

‘He has the most beautiful voice I have ever heard.’

 

 

‘What is this?’

Javier flicks through the different pages of the booklets, minute records of procedures and interventions done on him. He is shivering at the various photos stapled to the dossiers, the abomination in them himself but also not who he is.

**FILE [31493.10905.M]**

**[06/11/xxxx]** First anesthesia. Male, Caucasian, age 20-30, normal constitution, no adverse reactions. Conscience regained 78% faster than prescribed. Increase dosage to 160mg.

 **[20/11/xxxx]** Muscle structure modification. Gene isolation therapy inefficient, decay of the left iliotibial tract. Urgent reconstruction surgery performed at 21:41. No permanent damage registered.

He almost regurgitates all the acidic juices he had lodged on his stomach and bile too, the sourness already in his mouth. The drops of rain on him seemed to be crawling away from atrocious pictures too.

 **[10/12/xxxx]** Long-term memory conversion. Patient has no recollection of FILE [5692.326.F] Laura Fernández. Complete erasure successful. Proceed with adulteration of self-vocal recognition. NOTE: Vocal chords not to be tempered under order no. 95. Abnormalities to be reported immediately.

Yuzuru had been truthful all along. His voice had not been changed and it still belonged to him and only to him. He presses his lips together, suppressing the tears that welled at his eyelids.

 **[27/01/xxxx]** Code (initial stage). Rejection parameters not verified. Normal blood count values. Histopathological report within acceptable values. Slight increase in necrophagous T-cells. Normal levels of Gamma and Theta brain waves.

 **[28/03/xxxx]** Code (final stage). Rejection parameters not verified. Patient has awoken under stimulation with no withdrawal and unstable neuronal activity. Patient is completely clear of his identity.

‘Code transplantation… complete success.’ Javier traces the inked stamp. ‘To be exterminated.’ He reads them again and again, waiting for each character to sink into his mind. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘It means Javier,’ Brian sits on the same leather chair, a stain of blood already starting to smear the cotton around his thigh, ‘it means that your soul can be transferred to any body you wish without killing you. You are the first one to survive the Code.’

‘Am I–?’

‘Immortal? Who knows Javier?’

‘Then,’ he turns to Yuzuru as the grip on his hand is even stronger, ‘are we the same?’

‘No.’ The older man shakes his head, looking at the floor. ‘Yuzuru never existed.’


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ‘Aren’t you, Yuzuru, alive? Like me?’
> 
> ‘Are we?’ 
> 
> Javier leans forward and he brushes their lips together, tiny tremors with pulsating anticipation. He pours more pressure on the fleshy plumpness and the young man imitates him, opening his mouth further, until the tip of their tongues meet and they drink of each other’s saliva, of bitter lemon and sweet vanilla.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear all, Code has finally reached its end. For a plot that started a decade ago I wouldn't have imagined it to find its resolution here. Thank you so much for supporting this series until the end. I truly appreciate it now that I have to go on an hiatus from writing.
> 
> It's never late to remind that this series deals with dark and sensitive themes, including violence, sex and psychological manipulation. The ideas explored in this story do NOT reflect who I am and what my personal beliefs are. It also does not reflect the people mentioned. This is a work of FICTION. Thanks for your understanding.

The increasing electrical voltages on the stainless steel pads hit the pale chest with the utmost barbarity, press and discharge, a jolt enough to make the limp body almost fly from the surgical table. The heart line on the monitor fluctuates once again, peaks and depressions. All the grey masks sigh in relief as the rhythm stabilize, pulse and respiratory intervals returning to acceptable levels. A few fresh and wet stitches are ripped open from the savage shocks, the exposed cuts on the forehead bleeding and soaking the lustrous dark hair in vivid crimson.

‘How many times this week?’

The woman finishes scribbling the last notes on her clipboard, tearing the sheet filled with crosses, and she turns to the computer screen. Her red stilettos tap on the surface of the aluminum desk with an impatient tune as she rubs the bridge of her nose.

‘It’s the fourth time already. We can’t risk anymore.’

‘There is nothing wrong with my child.’

‘It won’t be just a cardiac arrest next time. There is already bleeding from his left frontal lobe.’

The voice from the monitor raises to such a high pitch that the woman almost falls from her chair and she bows immediately.

‘Continue with it. He will survive. He _must_ survive. He is perfect.’

‘His body is rejecting the Code.’

‘What did I tell you before?’

‘Maybe we should wait.’ She points at the body below them, immaculate clean by now. His reflexes are sharp and one of the surgeons raise a thumb to her.

‘You won’t tell my child to wait until he can go out and play! This world needs my child!’

‘His brain won’t be able to cope with the burden of a complete new conscience.’

‘THEN I WILL CUT OPEN YOUR HEAD AND PULL OUT YOUR OWN BRAIN TO SEE HOW MUCH MORE SPACE HE NEEDS! I WILL DRILL YOUR SKULL WITH A KNIFE UNTIL IT FALLS APART AT YOUR OWN FEET AND WHEN YOUR BRAIN IS OUT, I WILL USE IT TO FEED YOUR DOG!’

‘Master, please.’

‘He will lick it so clean that when he finishes, he will wriggle his tail at me so I can dig on the rest of your skeleton, bone by bone, until he is so full, but so full, that I will leave the excrement in you rot until your beauty no longer exists.’

‘I won’t say that again.’

The door to their viewing deck opens and two men clad in white scrubs and yellow masks come in.

‘No Master! Please! Please give me another chance!’

‘Your dog can’t wait for the feast that I will prepare for him.’

‘Please Master! I was wrong! I was truly wrong!’

‘Yes, you were.’

The woman retrieves her gun from the holster hidden in her waist and she arms it at the screen.

‘Ah! The biggest achievement of humankind. The killing with a cause. What do you call this? Oh right, self-defense.’

‘Please forgive me Master.’

She pulls the trigger, the bullet piercing the center of the computer. It explodes immediately, sparks flying to the glass partition and a few shards perforate the skin of her forearm.

‘Silly woman. Do _you_ think you can kill me? The one who made you?’

‘Please.’ She falls to the ground, the gun pointed at her own temple. ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘No one wants to die. This is why survival is so important. Don’t you think so?’

‘Yes. Please save me.’ Her finger is again on the trigger. ‘ _Please_.’ She presses on the mechanic spring but no lead bolt comes out. She is so terrified that tears fall without stopping, choking her.

‘Aren’t we… lucky? Who would say I still had this in me? Mercy? Am I merciful?’

The woman is completely aghast, her mouth open and staring at the broken monitor without really looking at it. She is shaking violently, synchronized with her looped sobs.

‘Dispose of her.’

The yellow-masked men drag her out of the room without a single question.

A floor below, the young man on the operation theater opens his eyes for the first time.

‘My child! You have finally woken. Welcome to this world.’

He stares at the white ceiling and the fluorescent lights, the inaugural brightness too strong that he diverts his gaze.

‘My perfect creation. I will call you… _Yuzuru_.’

 

 

‘Yuzuru never existed.’

Javier can feel the younger man’s pulse on his own palm. The impotent and debilitated body lies in the bed, the spreading paleness consuming more and more of the leftover rosy complexion of his cheeks. He is a living corpse, hanging to his last breath by the thread of their joined hands. Javier holds him even tighter and with multiplying potency. Let the phalanges crumble under his grasp so he can arrange them back together.

‘Who is Yuzuru then?’

‘No one. He was never anyone.’ Brian massages his thigh, around the stained bandages, and he retrieves the silver flask underneath his sports jacket. The odor of alcohol is so strong that the Spaniard can almost taste it on his tongue.

‘That’s impossible. We were together. I rescued him from those fat worms and…,’ he shakes his head, pressing their linked palms onto the mattress, ‘… we made love in this bed. His legs were wrapped around me, pulling me more into him every time I entered his warmth. It was so good Brian…’, a tear drops from his eyelids and he bites his lower lip, licking the saltiness that had fell on it, ‘so good, so… I never had felt this before. He…’, Javier takes a deep breath, swallowing the towering sob.

_Javier._

The sip on the curated beer only numbs the physical pain, not the commiserating pity. ‘Yuzuru is not human.’

_Javier._

‘I can hear him! I can hear him calling me! My name!’ He scatters the different files away, some falling to the floor like huge blocks of ice. The word _successful_ crumples under his fingers until all the letters are creased and distorted. ‘If I am their perfect monster, they can’t harm me. You said it yourself Brian, I am connected to Yuzuru by the Code.’

‘Yes, you two are connected.’ The mentor wipes the drop of his drink with the back of his hand.

‘If he can call me, I can reach him too.’

‘I wish you hadn’t asked me this.’

‘There is, isn’t it?’ Javier stares at Brian, waiting impatiently for a reply, for the magical password that would unlock all doors. ‘Please tell me.’

All the doubts in the world and those that had not yet arrived flash before the older man’s eyes as he braces the arms of the chair for support. ‘I can’t let you–‘

‘Blood.’ Tracy steps on the various reports dispersed on the hardwood flooring and holds out a butterfly knife to Javier. ‘An oath of blood. By blood we all are born and by blood we all die. We don’t know how much you need to bleed, Javier, until you can find him. You might never meet him. You might never wake up again.’

‘There is no point in staying alive if I cannot find him.’

‘Why?’ Brian points at the young man sleeping in bed. ‘What is so different this time?’

‘I want to feel that I am human. I want to be human.’ Javier brings their joined hands once again to his chest, on top of his heart. ‘Yuzuru and I, we are both humans. There is no point in surviving if they rob us of our humanity.’

The room falls silent. Outside, the rain continues in its incessant dance with the nightly gusts accompanied with the assemble of thunder and crackling branches.

‘So, will you take it or not?’

Javier seizes the heaviness of the metal blade in his own palm.

 

 

He sits on the surgical table, not an operation theater in demand but just him and the different monitors, all with scenes he does not know what they are. He thinks that it is a bird but all toes are connected and they flap in the water, the beak submerges in the waves instead of walking in the skies. On his right he recognizes a leaf and yet it is not green but an exquisite combination of brown and the color of pomegranate because he has no name for that hue. Yuzuru’s feet are dangling from the height of the desk and he doesn’t even flinch when his shin hits one of the titanium legs, a ruby bruise forming in the shivering numbness.

The only door in the room opens and he turns to it with expectant eyes. His smile fades when he sees a body thrown into the same space and it is as nothing as he has seen before.

‘Master?’

The body can’t stand up and it crawls slowly towards him, one knee at a time. The skin on the shoulder is melting as it nears Yuzuru, throbbing patches of muscles visible and even those are shredding in the same pace.

‘Please…. help… me.’

The young boy is paralyzed at the vision of pupils receding into the sockets and the lacerated tongue on falling teeth. He covers his nose and mouth from the horrific smell he doesn’t understand but he thinks he might go to the same darkness he drifted from time to time without knowing why.

‘Master!’

The decaying body has reached to the table and it holds his ankle. There are only three fingers left in that hand and it feels nothing like the hands of his Master. They are viscous and greasy, pulling him down to the same horror.

‘I… die… cannot.’

He tries to shake them off but the fingers won’t let go of him and they have caught his calf muscle.

‘MASTER!’ Again and again. ‘MASTER!’ Louder and louder. ‘MASTER!’

The body collapses into a lump of atrophied mass, the eyes wide with the mask of death, the void in them penetrating Yuzuru’s core. The young boy finally moves, backwards until the edge of the table, until he can’t anymore and he covers his ears, screaming from the bottom of his lungs.

‘My child, what are doing?’

He keeps yelling even when his throat is dry and he coughs to the point of almost vomiting. The transfigured corpse seems to accuse him with all the parts that it has left.

‘My boy, speak to me. Don’t be scared.’

‘Master?’ Yuzuru looks at all the screens, trying to find the voice. ‘Master!’

‘I am here, my child. What are you afraid of?’

‘Master! What is that? Why it glares at me?’

‘It’s a human, my Yuzuru.’

‘A human?’ He shakes his head fiercely. ‘No. I saw them before. I’m not like that!’

‘You are perfect, my child. No one can be equal to you.’

‘Why has it become so…’

‘So what, my child? So ugly? So hideous and grotesque? This is the real human nature. We strip them to their very basic nucleus and this is what they are. Creatures, savage creatures that bleed when beaten and broken when crushed.’

‘Will I be like that too, Master? Will I die one day?’

‘No, my child. You will be me one day and I will be you, my Yuzuru.’

 

 

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’

‘You used to worry less about my contingent one-night stands.’

Javier lies side by side with Yuzuru, their joined hands resting between their bodies, a valley no one dared to cross. The different wires on his chest and head reminds him on when he was sedated in the room _there_ , a funny uneasiness creeping up his toes, but the grip from the young man reassures him this was theirs to share and no one else.

‘I knew where to find you to spank your ass until you had to use diapers for a week.’ Brian turns on the improvised monitors, nodding at the different oscillating lines that appeared. ‘You are going to a place where I can’t save you. It’s going to be a lonely journey.’

‘I have him.’

‘Love really makes people stupid.’

Javier laughs gingerly. ‘It’s not love.’ He closes his eyes for brief seconds. He wonders what that feeling is called. ‘I’m just human, Brian.’

‘The philosopher doesn’t suit you.’ The mentor hands him the butterfly knife from before and he gives him one last squeeze on the shoulders, trembling but strong, all the mute prayers partaken there.

The cut is a precise and clean one. Javier slashes his and Yuzuru’s wrist in a swift incision, the sharp silver blade severing the artery in a merciless coldness. It doesn’t hurt strangely nor there is any numbness. It’s the renewal of life, of the hysterical rhythm that tells him he is alive and wet excitement lying underneath their joined thumbs. He falls back to his pillow, turning just slightly to look at Yuzuru.

_Javier._

_I’m coming._

He marks the young man’s face with his wobbling fingers, a streak of red in his cheek, mixed with a rut of sweat, as his vision gets blurry and the lights are too bright and disorienting. He shuts his eyes when the vertigo hits him and his head sinks in the pillow, heavy and pulling his breath with him too.

_Javier._

The lines on the screens cross one end to the other in a single dash, a thin horizontal bar dividing them into two halves. The monotone rings in the air, echoing in all the corners the march of death. Tracy takes a deep breath, her fingernails digging into her palms, when the neural activity of both unconscious men is playing a symphony of their own.

‘It’s impossible. How come?’

‘I’ve stopped thinking in impossibilities a long time ago.’ Brian pulls her in a single-arm embrace, both for support and reassuring comfort.

‘Why didn’t you tell him?’

‘Why didn’t _you_ tell him?’

‘I’ve brought him enough suffering.’ She leans on his shoulder, careful not to exert too much pressure on his wound. ‘This is a choice he had to make.’

‘He did. I’m sure he did.’

‘He might need a miracle.’

‘He already has it.’ Brian points at Yuzuru.

 

 

When Javier opens his eyes, the same sterile whiteness greets him with its virginal indifference. His arms and legs are extended and he lies in a mantle of broken glass, the shards small of the size of hail. They evaporate in his hand as he picks a few, rebuilding one of the screens on the ceiling. The more he gathers, the taller are the walls cramping down on him, all of them filled with his memories, moving pictures of who he was. He watches them pass by his very own eyes, the laughter and the tears, the girl with the same hazelnut hair as his, Tracy and her home brewed beer, Brian scolding him, a deal of cards, someone telling him he had never tasted strawberries.

Someone?

No, he came looking for him. The boy on the screen with dark hair, the boy on the grass toasting with rain, the boy who blew dandelion seeds on the wind and chased after them.

_Javier._

A drop of red falls into his thumb. He brings it to his lips.

_Yuzuru._

The walls burn, the bubble enveloping him fading into a veil of golden sand slipping through his fingers. It is beautiful the glitter shower, adorning him like a victory trophy in the dry rain. It is that moment that Javier catches a glimpse of a crouched figure, knees drawn to the chest and buried between them. Exactly just how he had first seen him in room 223.

‘Yuzuru!’

The boy lifts his head, perplexed and confused at the arrival of the voice.

‘Yuzuru!’

Javier runs to him, almost slipping on the grains at his feet.

‘Javi?’

He nods, touching Yuzuru’s cheek delicately, feeling the softness he was deprived of.

‘What are you doing here? The younger man recoils from the tenderness. ‘How did you come in?’

Javier notices the same shackles on his ankle, the chain in gold too, just like the sand.

‘You called me.’

‘I didn’t think you could hear me.’ He hugs his knees even tighter, hands to elbows already. ‘I didn’t think you would come.’

The Spaniard eases Yuzuru’s tension on the legs, a tentative hand on the joint first and then securing both his wrists, opening his taut figure to him. There is no cut in either one nor in his own, the skin on them unblemished and intact.

‘You didn’t have to come. Now Master will know you’re here.’

‘You were holding my hand.’

‘Did you feel it?’ There is surprise in the faint radiance of his obsidian eyes and he drops his gaze, smiling softly, alluring in its own quietude.

Javier thinks he has never seen such long eyelashes but he hates that they hide his own reflection on those two dark marbles. He lifts his chin just to confirm he is really in them, imbued in his pupils. Is that Javier the same one as who he is now? Could Yuzuru see himself too in his own eyes?

‘Why did you come here?’

‘I want to see the Code. To see what you see.’

‘I see nothing.’ The young man frees himself from Javier’s grasp and he lies down, back to the floor. He nudges close to him until his head is resting on the lap of the Spaniard. He starts pointing at different directions, all destinations nothing but complete whiteness. ‘I see death and ugliness. I see ashes in a burning forest and people crying for their lost children.’ He stops at Javier, tilting back his gaze. ‘But then I see you.’

‘How do I look?’

‘The same. Just…’

‘Just?’

‘Strawberry shortcake.’

‘What?’

It is the same coy smile but it soon morphs into a full laughter, the sound so beautifully pure Javier hopes he will never stop.

‘I’ve never seen how beautiful the world can be. Only the shadows.’

He wants to touch him so much, to show Yuzuru how he was the most beautiful in this infinite prison of their minds, but his hands are ironically trembling with apprehension. He runs his fingers through the young man’s hair, the silky strands caressing his palm.

‘There is beauty in the shadows too.’

Yuzuru nods. ‘I always wanted to be alive.’

‘Aren’t you, Yuzuru, alive? Like me?’

‘Are we?’

Javier leans forward and he brushes their lips together, tiny tremors with pulsating anticipation. He pours more pressure on the fleshy plumpness and the young man imitates him, opening his mouth further, until the tip of their tongues meet and they drink of each other’s saliva, of bitter lemon and sweet vanilla.

Yuzuru sits as he gasps for air but he holds his breath, not wanting the taste to fade away.

‘Why did you come here, Javi?’

‘I too wanted to feel alive.’

‘Is this…’ Yuzuru guides Javier’s hand to his groin, to his own growing erection. ‘… life?’

‘Yes.’ The Spaniard smirks as he tiptoes on the clothed length. ‘And this.’ He kisses the younger man’s eyelids, his tongue traveling to his earlobe and whispering, ‘this too.’ The sudden twitch when he bites the mole on the neck cruises to his own nerves and his body jolts of their shared heat. ‘Also this.’ He pulls the white shirt off, the dark strands caught in the clumsiness of the gesture, and he dives for the hairs of the same tinge in the armpits.

Yuzuru laughs at his own ticklishness and pushes the other way man away, not too far but close enough so he too can remove the superfluous garment. He bites his lower lip at the sight of the naked chest, and even when Javier nods, he simply grazes his nails at the pectorals, kitten claws, until there is a trail of red. He follows the pattern with his tongue, sucking on the nipples, looking through his eyelashes, the grin not virtuous but coy and skittishly boyish.

Their lips seek each other, still with the lack of agility and unhurried yearning. Their hands are synchronized with the swing of their hips to remove the last barrier between their bodies and when the tips of their sex rub together, Javier is the first one to moan in a muffled baritone. Flesh on flesh, vein on vein, their fingers smear with the precum leaking as they stroke their lengths in the same rhythm. Javier’s finger slides to Yuzuru’s entrance and the sound of the high-pitched yelp is so divine that he buries the digit completely inside of the younger man.

‘Javi…’ He grabs the Spaniard’s shoulder for support. ‘… this is better than the strawberry.’

‘There is something _even_ greater.’

In the mild control of his arms, Javier lays Yuzuru down, his hips opening the milky thighs. He shakes his head to dispel the fear in his eyes, maybe in his own. He eases in, penetrating past the scorching rings of muscles that hug him so tightly he never wants to leave. The young man throws his head back, mouth agape in the silent cry of a satiated smile, the contractions on his stomach matched with his volatile breathing.

‘Better?’ Yuzuru nods. ‘How much _better_?’ He retrieves just slightly and impales again, deep, that the wave of pleasure ripped from Yuzuru’s core resonates into his bones.

‘Do that again.’

‘Do what?’ Javier lifts his leg, planting kisses on the knee, on the calf, biting each toe and the sole of his foot. The hisses and whimpers are a symphony in his ears and he might be drown in their spell.

‘ _Fuck me_.’

Their worship of lovemaking continues in the broken time, in an hourglass of their own, never rushed, even when the gluttony of lust seemed to tear them apart with heightened impatience and unforgiving madness. The first time Yuzuru experiences the unbridled bliss of his own orgasm, Javier thrusts even harder to see him writhe in his trembling sensitivity. They continue for minutes, hours, until the grains of sand were lost and forgotten. Kisses in swollen lips, pulls of hair in playful caresses, throbbing rawness on each of their tongues. Javier has no idea what words he is muttering, if those were words, if there was any language possible to translate the animalistic instinct of savoring life. There isn’t as he only moans at the fullness in him when Yuzuru enters him too in the same torturing pace the pair of hands traced lines on his back, a long labyrinth, the nails digging on the roundness of his butt cheeks to secure him for another impetus dive inside.

Perhaps they were not humans, just another crepuscule in the infinite universe. Perhaps they were, and they had been just reborn.

Javier and Yuzuru lie side by side, their bodies flushed, glistening in the afterglow of their climaxes, of spilled tears and tacky sweat, of their semen coating their skin. The Spaniard draws circles with the white essence on the younger man’s belly but Yuzuru brings the finger to his mouth, sucking the remnants of their passion. Javier kisses his lips, desperately clinging to the same zest.

‘I like your voice Javi. They–‘

‘I know.’ He tucks behind Yuzuru’s ears one of the dark locks that has plastered in his forehead, smiling gently. ‘I know.’

‘Tell me things.’

‘What things?’

‘Just things.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I want to hear you talking to me.’

‘He, my child? Not me?’ Yuzuru sits abruptly, looking exasperatingly to his sides, to the ceiling, searching for the voice.

‘Master?’

‘A failure? A _failure_ , my child?’

‘Javi is not a failure!’

‘Who are you talking to, Yuzuru?’ The Spaniard halts the other man’s movements but the dread and rising panic in his pupils are so different from their shared euphoria just now.

‘Me! _Failure_! Me, me, ME!’

The mechanical screech in the surrounding whiteness hammers both of them in the most vicious convulsions. Javier clutches his arms so forcibly he might dislocate his shoulder. It’s only for brief seconds when the roaring noise stops and it modulates into a person’s voice, not a man’s nor a woman’s, a voice that had in it many other voices, young and old, scornful and disdainful, a plethora of voices wanting to be freed and others waiting to be sunk.

‘Oh, you are the same _failure_ that dared to enter before, soiling my child with your dirty hands.’

‘You won’t harm Javi.’

‘Hurt him?’ The laughter is hysterical, echoing like a solid slap on Yuzuru’s face. ‘He will die sooner or later. He knows this and yet he entered the Code. _Pathetic_. You too, my child, becoming so deplorable and pitiful. So ugly.’

‘Master–‘

‘You were perfect, my child. So beautiful when all those failures died at your hands.’

He shakes his head vigorously as nausea creeps in his chest. ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘You did, my child, so, so many times. So many times you have rejoiced in their blood when I brought them to you. So many times you danced at the venom of their spoiled meat. So many times, my harbinger of death.’

‘The Code did it!’

‘What do you think _you_ are, my child?’

He hesitates, mentally counting each beat of his own heart. ‘I am Yuzuru.’

‘I will tell you, my child. You are a conscience born from the Code. You are within the Code. You are the Code! Each time a person died, you got stronger, until you decided you wanted to see this world and I gave you the chance. I gave you everything, my child. Beautiful and merciful, am I not?’

‘You are lying. I am human.’

‘I am! I am human! HUMAN! And I have waited too long for a body.’

Yuzuru looks at Javier instinctively, reaching for his face. He cups the jaws carefully, descending to the neck, the swallowing of each gulp on his fingertip, as if the other man would perish if he didn’t hold on to him.

‘Not him. I don’t need a _failure_.’

The shackles on his ankles are there, in untarnished gold just like before, as if they had never been acquitted.

‘It’s _you_ , my child. It’s time for you to disappear.’

‘Me?’ It comes as a whisper.

‘Why do you think I have created this perfect shell you have? That you have defiled with stupid affection and pointless hope?’

‘Because…’ A solitary tear falls to the palm of his hand, the drop beautifully crystalized in a snowflake. ‘… you said you loved me.’

‘Oh, I really love you, my child. So much you can never imagine. You are me, my child, and I couldn’t love you any more than this. This body you have is mine so I loved it with all my might.’ It is the first time that the voice is exalted with flamed excitement. ‘I love you because in the end, there will only be me.’

Javier touches Yuzuru’s forearm but the younger man jerks away from the caress, walking back in faltering steps, staggering and gasping for air to enter his swollen throat, until the chains bind him to the spot and he falls, the floor vanishing in an evanescent illusion.

‘I don’t exist.’

‘It’s all in the mind, Yuzuru!’

‘Love you. Love me. Me, me, ME!’

‘Don’t listen to it!’

‘I’m the Code.’

‘Return what is mine.’

‘Break it.’

‘I will return it.’

‘Disappear, my child.’

Yuzuru grabs the metallic manacles, the gold dissolving into glutinous larvae that chomp and penetrate the skin of his arms, consuming him slowly in their path. There is no pain, he tells himself, and he pulls the chain, uprooting the weed, breaking the connected links.

In Javier’s bed, the younger man’s neural monitor goes flat.

 

 

He has never felt his body been so light he thinks he is flying. His arms are no wings and he can’t pluck feathers from them but he is floating even without water, drifting on waves of nothingness, suspended outside of time and gravity. The silence is comforting, a lullaby of mute reassurance, that he closes his eyes so he can sleep for a while.

A baby had just been born, the wrinkled skin covered in translucid amniotic fluid, umbilical cord still attached as the blades of a scissors clips it off. The first cry is so fragile and frightened that Yuzuru wants to save it so he can always remember such beautiful sound.

A toddler now, the infant crawls on a carpeted pavement until he stands up on his own and the tiny hands clap in the furor of the new acquired power. Yuzuru wants to run his fingers in the hazelnut curls.

A child with a yellow and red rucksack, he now walks to school. Another boy runs to him and picks his cap. He chases him, calling the little thief in a mischievous manner himself. Yuzuru notices that not only his hair is brown, but his eyes too, an exquisite tone of cinnamon bark.

A young man with a stubble now, he locks the door of his room and he sits by the bed. His hand plunges inside his pants, massaging his own manhood, the member hardening under the crude fondles and peeking past the elastic of the waistband of his underwear. The voice is handsomely deep now, slightly raspy and breathier. Yuzuru wants to hear more of it, even if it was just the last sound he would ever hear.

The man runs in a meadow but he stops now and he turns, holding out his hand. Yuzuru extends his own, and the other palm latches on to his. They run through the grass fields, the humid breeze kissing the tip of his nose and the first drop of rain settles on his eyelashes. They stop, staring at the inflated grey clouds above them. The other man picks up a red orb from the soil and he brings it to Yuzuru’s lips.

A strawberry.

A strawberry?

‘Javier.’

The man is unconscious and millions of colored masks in a sterile white room touch him now. Yuzuru has seen it before. He knows this. The scalpels and the forceps, the needles and suture lines. _No, please_. The incision in the trachea – the voice. _No, please don’t_.

Who was crying now?

‘Javier!’

 

 

‘I am here.’

Yuzuru opens his eyes, the white glow of the room blinding him again. Javier kneels besides him and the younger man lunges for his neck, weighing on the Adam’s apple, nudging on a scar that does not exist. He eases the stress on it immediately when Javier coughs. He kisses him with frantic need, their lips locking with urgency.

‘I’ve seen it Javi. The whole Code. I can’t let it continue.’ The gold dust at their feet had lost its sheen and the grains are moving on their accord again, merging into large chunks and molding into the links of the original chain. ‘You have to wake up.’

‘If you have seen the Code, you know that I’m part of it too.’

‘You don’t have to do this.’

‘Do you know why we are humans?’ Javier leans forward, press their foreheads together. ‘Because we can choose. I can choose to stay and you can choose to let me be with you.’

‘You won’t wake up again.’

‘Will you?’

Yuzuru smiles. ‘Will I?’

‘Besides,’ the Spaniard traces the younger man’s chiseled jaw until the curvature of his lips, the corners of his mouth, ‘we have time on our side. We are–‘

‘Princes of eternity.’

Yuzuru picks up the newly formed chain, not gold but rusted iron, full of thorns. The string pricks the skin of his palm, open lacerations, seemingly wanting to infuse with his flesh. He throws the chain, the dust, the sand, even his shackles, as hard as he can, as furiously alive as he feels, not just the metal but the breath of his soul, into the white wall. The cracks spread into the ground, the ceiling, around them, and it all shatters like glass, piece by piece, the very first to the ultimate end.

The paleness recedes into a void and red rivulets drip on their cheeks, their shoulders, coating the world of their minds in blooming crimson.

‘It’s beautiful.’ Javier spreads the flaming crystals on their joined hands.

‘It looks like red rain.’

‘Are you afraid you will disappear?’

‘No.’ Yuzuru lies on Javier’s lap, just how he has done before, his head nudging to his navel, his hair tickling the naked skin. ‘We are humans.’

‘Not princes?’ He hugs Yuzuru, his arms encircling him in his embrace as if they were just one single body.

‘Kings.’

In the stillness of the room, Brian and Tracy nod to each other and they switch off the various monitors. The bed sheets are soaked in Javier and Yuzuru’s blood but both men are smiling, their fingers interlaced in a knot only theirs.

Outside, it has stopped raining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any questions, I will gladly answer them. Comments very much appreciated.


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